Federal Program Agencies: Correspondence

Meeting Minutes
ASAP Federal Program Agency User (FPA) Group Meeting
Silver Spring, Maryland
June13, 2006

Introductions and General Remarks:
Federal Program Agency (FPA) ASAP Customer Board (ACB) members were introduced: Art LeBlanc, Chair, Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), USDA, Anita Easterday, National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), Department of Commerce; Jennifer Chriss, Bureau of the Public Debt, Treasury.

FMS and Richmond Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) representatives were introduced: Gavin Jackson, Director, Project Management Division; Elizabeth Oldenburg, Program Manager, ASAP Program Office; Carol Cole, Manager, ASAP Operations Team; Victor Poore, newly selected Project Manager, ASAP.gov Development Team; Adele Allen, FRB Richmond ASAP CBAF; Tim Morris, Manager FRB Richmond ASAP CBAF; Barry WaltonFRB Richmond ASAP Development.

Internet Enrollment for Recipient Organizations: Implementation Overview:

A new FPA role of Enrollment Initiator (EI) will begin the process for Recipient Organization (RO) enrollment by identifying the Point of Contact (POC) within the RO (name, email, phone and mailing address), DUNS and TIN information, and the type of organization.

Every stage of the enrollment process has a 45 day window for completion. ASAP.gov will generate an email reminder to all applicable enrollment actors that an enrollment action is required at the following intervals: 35 and 40 days. ASAP.gov will delete the enrollment at the 46th day if a required aciton is not taken. After the enrollment has been deleted, the EI must restart the enrollment process to enroll the RO in ASAP.gov.

The RO POC is critical to the enrollment process. If the incorrect POC or DUNS/TIN information has been identified, the POC can reject the enrollment and an email will be sent to the EI to correct the enrroneous information.

• Federal Program Agency Enrollment Initiator (EI)
  • Identifies Recipient Organization to be enrolled and Point of Contact
• Point of Contact (POC)
  • Identifies organization officials:
  • Head of the Organization (HOO)
  • Authorizing Official
  • Financial Official
• Head of the Organization (HOO)
  • Approves organization officials
• Authorizing Official (AO)
  • Enters organization's address information and identifies users and their role(s)
• Financial Official (FO)
  • Enters and maintains banking information

Important: When awarding a grant to an RO already enrolled in ASAP with another Federal agency, your EI must start the enrollment process of that RO with YOUR Federal agency. This will notify the ROs Financial Official that they must link a bank account to your Agency Location Code (ALC) in order to received grant funds through ASAP.

Question: Will the Enrollment Initiator (EI) User Guide be posted on the FMS ASAP website?
Answer: Yes, we also plan to post a Point of Contact (POC) User Guide on the FMS ASAP website (www.fms.treas.gov/asap) by August.

Question: Have you identified FPAs without EIs?
Answer: The RFCs will contact all FPAs to ensure that all EIs are identified before enrollment is opened.

Question: When will open enrollment begin?
Answer: We plan to open enrollment in late August.

Question: Are FPAs limited in the number of EIs they can designate?
Answer: No, an FPA can have as many EIs as they need.

ASAP Updates:

We have undergone a massive ASAP data clean-up.

An EI can have multiple roles such as Account Maintainer, Authorization Entry Clerk, and POC. An EI cannot have the role of the Certifying Officer (CO) or Federal agency Payment Requestor.

Payment Requestors acting on behalf of an RO will no longer receive separate Payment Requestor IDs. Instead, the PR will be given the Payment Requestor role under the RO ID. With this change PR will need to use the RO ID when taking an action in ASAP.gov. However, Federal agencies may continue to supply the separate PR ID in their files when creating accounts and authorizations for existing organizations using the bulk data interface.

Users will have the capability of updating their individual information (i.e., address and phone number) via "Modify My Info" option. Email address and first/last name may not be modified. When an email address or name changes, the user must re-enroll.

The following additional reports will be available:

• Enrollment Inquiry and Report: Provides the status of an RO's enrollment.
• Banking Data Inquiry: Provides detailed information about an ROs bank account. COs and FOs have access to the complete bank ABA and account number. Other roles will only see the last 4 digits of the account number.
• Recipient Organization Users Inquiry: Provides details on all RO users and their roles.

The following production problems have been corrected:

• Certify Batch Authorizations - COs can now certify batch authorizations at the batch level. Shortly after implementation of Release 2.0 a bug forced COs using ALC/Region Code to certify batch authorizaitons at the detail level.
• Payment Templates - All templates created before Release 2.0 were deleted and ROs were required to re-establish the templates after implementation.

Problems Pending Correction:

• Agency access to accounts of existing organizations without linked banking data;
• Emails being sent to COs erroneously;
• Ability for existing RO to use a bank account with an alpha numeric character in the bank account number and title fields.

Maintaining Access:
To maintain access, we recommend users log on at least once a quarter. We have increased the password timframe from 45 to 90 days to facilitate access to the ASAP.gov system.

For those ROs who have not yet provided DUNS or TIN information, we will seek the help of the FPA to obtain the needed information.

Training Environment:
At this time, the training environment is restricted to classroom training since it has to be scheduled in advance and is only available for short periods of time. A new training environment is being developed that will allow acceess during normal ASAP hours of operation. We will post a message to the ASAP homepage once the new training environment becomes available.

We will provide training for FPAs at any of the servicing RFCs (Philadelphia, Kansas City, and San Francisco) as well as the Washington, DC metro area.

Question: Can the DUNS and TIN information be modified?
Answer: No. Changes to a DUNS and TIN require an RO to re-enroll.

Question: Can one person within the RO be all roles (i.e., HOO, FO, AO, POC)?
Answer: Yes, the ASAP.gov system has been designed to be flexible enough to recognize that an RO can consist of just one person.

Question: Does the RO enrollment process affect 1031s?
Answer: No. The implementation affecting 1031s and Voice Response Users is scheduled to take place at a later time. New 1031 or VRS Only ROs must submit paper enrollment forms to their servicing RFC.

Question: Can FPAs assist in resolving issues with ROs earlier in the future?
Answer: Yes, we plan to include FPAs in future efforts to obtain information from ROs as early as possible.

Question: Can FPAs assist in resolving issues with ROs earlier in the future?
Answer: Yes, we plan to include FPAs in future efforts to obtain information from ROs as early as possible.

New Certifying Officer Functionality:

Recipient Organization Financial Official Responsibility:
The Financial Official (FO) is responsible for inputting banking data and linking the accounts to FPAs. The FO is also responsible for providing accurate banking information.

The following statement is included in the instructions to the FO:
"As the Financial Official, you are responsible for verifying the accuracy of the bank account information entered. The United States, U.S. Department of the Treasury, and the participating Federal agency or entity, are not responsible for misdirected payments in the event you enter incorrect or inaccurate bank account information. The Recipient Organization bears the risk of loss for such misdirected payments."

The following statement is included in the FO Certification step:
"Please check with your financial institution to make sure you have entered the correct routing and transit number (ABA/RTN) and bank account number. The United States, U.S. Department of the Treasury, and the participating Federal agency or entity are not responsible for misdirected payments in the event you enter incorrect or inaccurate ABA/RTN or bank account number information. The Recipient Organization bears the risk of loss for such misdirected payments."

Federal Agency Certifying Officer Responsibility:
The draw down of funds via ASAP.gov from Treasury's account to an RO's account is a disbursement within the meaning of 31 USC 3325 and 3528. Under Section 3325, Treasury disbursing officials are accountable for disbursing payments in accordance with certifying vouchers submitted by agency certifying officials. Under Section 3528 a certifying official submitting a payment voucher to Treasury is responsible for, among other things, "information stated in the certificate, voucher, and supporting records" and for ensuring that payment is proper under the appropriation or funding source.

Consistent with Section 3528, the required certification language for ASAP.gov reads:
"Pursuant to the authority vested in me, I certify that the items listed herein are correct and proper for payment from the appropriation(s) designated herein or in supporting vouchers, and that the banking data is an accurate supporting record for payment certification purposes."

This language is consistent with the respective responsibilities of certifying and disbursing officials under Sections 3528 and 3325, i.e. the banking RTN and account number of the RO is a supporting record for which the certifying officer is responsible under Section 3528. This is akin to the existing process whereby certifying officials provide FMS disbursing officials with payee address information (for check disbursements) or account information (for ACH or Fedwire payments).

Digital Signatures:
Digital signature code has been developed and functional testing is complete.

User Acceptance Testing will occur in August.

Roll out to pilot agencies (FNS and NIST) is anticipated for late August 2006. Full rollout is expected fall 2006.

Currently, COs certify authorizations by re-entering their password. In the near future, COs will certify using a digital signature. COs using the SPS system will be able to use the same certificate to sign transactions in ASAP.gov and will receive an additional driver to accomodate ASAP. COs not using the SPS system will have to be in person proofed by a Trusted Registration Agent (TRA) before receiving their digital certificate.

Question: Have their been any problems with the Inspector General's Office concerning erroneous banking data?
Answer: No.

Question: Is it possible to rely on the Central Contractor Registration Database (CCR) for banking information as well as DUNS and TIN information?
Answer: ASAP is currently participating with a CCR work group that is making changes to CCR to accomodate grant payment systems. We hope to successfully use the CCR to obtain banking data in the future. DUNS and TIN received from the FPA would be the basis for pulling the banking data from CCR.

Question: Language noting the "grantor FPA" should be changed since not all FPAs have a grantor/grantee relationship with recipients.
Answer: The language has be updated to "participating FPA".

Question: Agencies do not currently have the infrastructure in place to verify banking data.
Answer: To provide time for an FPA's verification of banking data, there is currently a delay from the time an FO enters new banking data until that account can be used for receving payments. The current delay is three days for bank accounts designated for Fedwire payments and seven days for bank accounts designated for ACH payments (the ACH delay is driven by the ACH prenotifcation period). FPAs have the option of suspending an ASAP account if an RO does not provide required banking data verification to the FPA. ASAP.gov is flexible and FMS is willing to extend the waiting period timeframes if it will assist in the verification process for the FPAs.

Question: If an FPA changes their ALC or region code, do they have to re-enroll?
Answer: Yes. ASAP does not allow agencies to move RO account data from one ALC to another.

Question: If an RO has two bank accounts tied to an ALC and a CO certifying an authorization only has knowledge of one bank account, how can the CO be assured that payments will be routed to this bank account?
Answer: If more than one CO is involved under an ALC, they should share information about bank accounts when giving funds to the same recipient. If the CO cannot confirm information about the other bank account, the CO has the option of requesting verification information from the RO and/or canceling the authorization.

Question: What does the CO verify banking data against?
Answer: The FPA has an established relationship with the RO and may decide to require banking information to be provided as part of the grant agreement. Historically, when checks are disbursed, address information is needed. In the electronic world of SPS, certifying FPAs give bank account information. As defined by Congress, Treasury's misssion is ministerial to disburse payments based on the FPAs instructions. In the past, RFC staff have verified banking information as a service to our customer FPAs. Based on recommendation from our Chief Counsel, FMS is no longer verifying banking data of ASAP ROs since FMS does not have the grant relationship with the RO. FPAs are responsible for verifying banking information. Treasury has provided strong RO language concerning their risk and liability when providing incorrect or inaccurate banking information. The Head of Organization is also responsible for certifying the accuracy of the information provided by the FO.

Question: What can a CO do when an FO changes an RO's banking data after an authorization has been certified?
Answer: COs within the FPA and the HOO of the RO are notified of banking data changes and are given time to react to the change by reducing the account balance or suspending the account until adequate documentation is received from the RO.

ASAP Release Schedule:
Release 3.0: Reports, Notification of Change (NOC), and Online Notifications. The projected implementation date is November 2006.

Release 3.0 includes the following new or enhanced reports:

• Agency Reconciliation Report - new report allowing agencies to have a snapshot of all transactions.
• Account Settlement Report - change to an existing report to explain why a negative balance may appear.
• The Notifications of Change Inquiry - new inquiry to show changes to banking data processed based on notification from the Recipient Organization's financial institution.

Notifications of Changes (NOCs) are used by financial institutions to inform other financial institutions and payment initiators that banking information has changed, e.g., due to merger. When an NOC is received and processed, an "information only" email notification will be sent to the the FPA CO, RO FO, and RO Payment Requestor. As the financial institituion is the final authority on banking data, NOC updates do not require any action on the part of the CO or FO.

Online Notifications:
The first step in redesigning online notifications is included in Release 3.0 This enhancement will replace code language (e.g., SQL94839) in the subject line of the notification with descriptive text. Further enhancement in a later release will allow a user to turn specific Notifications On or Off.

Release 4.0 FPA Enrollment. The projected implementation date is April 2007.

Release 4.0 will include Federal agency enrollment functionality and the requirement that Certifying Officers use their PKI certificate to authenticate when logging in to ASAP.gov.

Automated Federal Agency enrollment will still require Certifying Officers to file and maintain a valid FMS Form 210 signed by their Delegating Official who must have a current FMS Form 2958 on file.

Preview of New Internet Enrollment for Federal Program Agencies

Regional Financial Center:

Point of Contact:

Certifying Officer:

The following link will open a PowerPoint screenshot to show which overlapping roles are and are not allowed in ASAP.gov. Launch Roles Matrix Power Point screenshot.

If a CO is a Data Entry Operator in SPS, he/she cannot be a CO in ASAP.

Question: If a POC designates a new CO in ASAP.gov for an enrolled FPA, how will they be validated?
Answer: When a new CO is designated for an existing FPA, an email is generated to the servicing RFC which will verify that a valid FMS Form 210 is on file before approving the CO role and beginning the PKI provisioning process.

Question: How is the recertification of users handled?
Answer: Currently, the process is handled outside of ASAP. FMS is implementing a single sign on solution for Treasury applications. We anticipate the recertification of users taking place as part of the single sign on solution. Recertification is handled once a year and is next scheduled for May 2007.

Tutorial:
New tutorials have been created but will not be put into production until performance testing is completed to ensure that the running of the tutorials will not impact the application. Once implemented, their availability will be announced with a home page broadcast message. Tutorials will be available from the ASAP.gov homepage Help pull-down menu. Tutorials include FPA Tutorials, Payment Requestor Tutorials, and Recipient Enrollment Tutorials.

Closing Remarks:
Users are encouraged to register at the FMS ASAP website (www.fms.treas.gov/asap) to automatically receive email notifications of upcoming events such as meetings or training classes and important notices.

Art LeBlanc, Chair of the Customer Board and an representative, discussed the Board and its functions and duties. He encouraged the participants to consider joining the Board as an FPA representative.